An altar from the shuttered St. John’s Episcopal Church in Jersey City has turned up on eBay, for sale by a New York importer at a nearly $50,000 price tag.
The eight-foot-high altar has an inscription on the bottom in memory of Edward F.C. Young, a banker and power broker who was one of the most influential people in Jersey City at the end of the 19th Century.
Our parish, after 5 years in the usual temporary locations, moved into our new building last month. However, the pulpit, lectern, baptismal font, and pews are all used, most 100+ years old. There seems to be a thriving business in old church furnishings.
Will KJS now depose the bishop of New Jersey for allowing this to fall into “Anglican” hands if an ACNA parish buys it? Or do you have to prove your non-Anglican status to eBay in order to bid?
PS- the “read it all” link is looping back to the T19 article.
Here’s the [url=http://www.nj.com/hudson/index.ssf/2012/01/altar_from_st_johns_episcopal.html]link[/url].
Some of the comments are interesting.
Sometimes whole churches end up being sold: see here for an example in England
http://www.allsaintschapel.co.uk/default.html
which although available as a hire venue at least was not turned into a night club. I find it very, very sad. I wonder whether our dioceses have policies about the disposal of artefacts. A friend of mine bought a chasuble off a stall in Portobello Market, the famous street market in London.
If you want something to give you pause, go to EBay, search for “altar”, and sort by “highest price first”. This is merely one of many, many out there.
BTW, I see they are misrepresenting the altar as coming from a church in “upstate New York”.